America's founding promise of religious freedom has long needed defense

The Virginia statute provided a template for the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1791. The amendment prohibits Congress from enacting laws that favor particular religions or interfering with free religious practice. It represents a key safeguard for personal belief against the power of the federal government.

Legal safeguards did not mean that all religious groups were treated equally, however. In reality, many Americans imagined the new nation to be a Protestant country.

Official and unofficial religious discrimination

Despite protections at the federal level and in some states, including Virginia, state and local governments were not bound by First Amendment protections until the 1920s. Religious discrimination in civic life was commonplace for the nation's first 100 years.

North Carolina prohibited Catholics from holding public office until the 1830s and Jews from doing so until the 1860s. New Hampshire's Constitution banned all non-Protestants from holding public office until 1877.

Smaller instances of religious bigotry abounded as well. In some public schools, including in large cities such as Philadelphia, students of all religions were required to read the Bible and sing Protestant hymns. Jewish Americans were often forced to work on their Sabbath and found themselves barred from some hotels and resorts, especially in the second half of the 1800s.

At times, hostility to religious minorities even fueled outright violence. The Philadelphia Bible Riots of 1844 began when the city's growing Catholic population challenged the use of a Protestant Bible translation in public schools. Anti-Catholic nativists responded with force, and the ensuing conflict left over a dozen people dead.

Toward a 'Judeo-Christian' America

Things slowly began to change soon after the nation's centennial in 1876. As I explore in my work, rising indifference toward religion among many Americans, as well as outright atheism, pushed many Protestant leaders to reevaluate how they treated their Catholic and Jewish neighbors.

Echoing a distrust of atheists that runs deep in U.S. history, these Protestants believed that any religion — even a non-Protestant one — was better for society than no religion at all. This conclusion prompted many Protestants to more fully affirm Catholicism and Judaism. By the early 1900s, it had become common for Protestant ministers to challenge religious bigotry, as one Minnesota clergyman did when he publicly lamented the "false notions and wretched prejudices" held against Jews.

This attitude gained support among the nation's leaders. President Theodore Roosevelt took a major step by publicly praising Catholics and Jews. He insisted that their religious affiliations did not keep them from being "full Americans."

After appointing the first Jewish Cabinet member in U.S. history, Roosevelt boasted, "In my cabinet at present, there sit side by side Catholic and Protestant, Christian and Jew."

There was soon a backlash to the growing acceptance of religious diversity. The 1920s witnessed the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan. Its anti-immigrant campaigns targeted Catholics and Jews with particular force.

Still, the idea that Jewish and Catholic Americans were equal stakeholders in American society took root. By the 1950s, politicians, academics and religious leaders described the United States not as a Protestant country but a "Judeo-Christian" one.

Expanding multiculturalism

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 opened a new chapter for religious pluralism in the United States. The law ended restrictions on immigration from non-European countries. Consequently, the number of practitioners of Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam increased significantly.

Christian groups lobbied strongly for these changes. The National Council of Churches, which represented the country's major Protestant denominations, lent its significant clout to support the legislation. U.S. Catholic organizations likewise endorsed the 1965 law. For many Catholics, earlier experiences of discrimination and prejudice guided their desire for a more welcoming, inclusive immigration policy.

After 1965, religious diversity became far more visible to ordinary Americans. Earlier generations of immigrants — including Catholics and Jews in the 1800s — typically settled in ethnic enclaves. By contrast, immigrants now settled in diverse suburban communities. Newly arrived Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims often lived next door to Protestant, Catholic and Jewish families.

As in earlier periods, these developments were not entirely harmonious. The 1980s and '90s witnessed violent attacks against both the institutions and individual practitioners of minority religions. Islamic centers and Buddhist temples were targeted in places ranging from Massachusetts to Minnesota, to Tennessee. The large population of Hindu Americans in northern New Jersey endured a wave of violence against individuals. Despite these instances, scholar of religion Diana L. Eck chronicled in her 2001 book A New Religious America how fully the religious nature of the U.S. had been transformed as the nation became characterized by multiculturalism.

While religious minorities have often faced exclusion and hostility, many Americans have long believed that guarantees of religious liberty promise a more inclusive society. In its 250th year, that promise is being tested once again.